


I Don't Know Why (I Just Do)

by Rabenherz



Series: Smoke Gets In Your Eyes [9]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Found Family, Friendship, Gen, It was The Night Before Hoover Dam, Lily Bowen Deserves Better, Regret, Team as Family, burning bridges, impending betrayal, too little too late
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-26
Updated: 2020-02-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:29:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22914016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rabenherz/pseuds/Rabenherz
Summary: Arthur wants a real drink. Wants it bad enough to be half-tempted to creep upstairs and drag Cass out of bed for the bender of a century. Sounds just like something Courier Six would do - turn up to a massacre late and hungover, eyes hidden behind the most obnoxiously large pair of sunglasses he can find.
Series: Smoke Gets In Your Eyes [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1628497
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	I Don't Know Why (I Just Do)

Arthur has been watching the strip for hours, smoking, thinking. Trying not to think.

With everyone else fast asleep The Lucky 38 is deathly quiet, but he finds comfort in the commotion below. There was a song once, about a city that never sleeps, but as far as he knows that place is long gone, just another pre-war relic buried under concrete and ash.

 _I_ _t should have been about Vegas,_ he thinks, stubbing out his cigarette. Vegas does not sleep, either, and it is a damn sight more durable.

Tomorrow feels like a foreign country, as distant and nebulous as England and China. Who knows what kind of things you’ll see there - what kind of people you’ll meet, what foods you’ll eat? It feels a bit like he will never get there, just like no American may ever see Shanghai again. But tomorrow is also not thousands of miles away; only a few hours. 

And tomorrow they will be setting out towards Hoover Dam.

Arthur uses the edge of a table to crack open a Sarsaparilla. The cap falls, revealing the promise of a blue star. Automatically, he bends to pick it up, running his thumb around the crimped edge. 

_So much effort, and all for the sake of a story._

Trite as it may be, sometimes the journey is the destination. Sighing, he pockets the cap and sips his soda. Much too sweet, of course, but he has grown a taste for it. 

In the end, even the bombs didn’t stop the sun coming up.

Arthur wants a real drink. Wants it bad enough to be half-tempted to creep upstairs and drag Cass out of bed for the bender of a century. Sounds just like something Courier Six would do - turn up to a massacre late and hungover, eyes hidden behind the most obnoxiously large pair of sunglasses he can find. 

From up here, Freeside looks empty, an area of twilight between the neon-brightness of the strip and the deceptive darkness of the desert beyond. Somewhere out there a good man does his best to prepare the Followers for a wave of refugees that is going to swallow them whole. Supplies are already spread too thin, and if Hoover Dam will be anything like Arthur imagines it, there will be starvation, disease and riots. Even if Freeside recovers, it will never be the same. 

Something leathery brushes against Arthur’s forehead, like a baseball mitt but warmer. 

“Hey Lily,” he sighs.

“Don’t stay up too late now, dear, tomorrow is a big, big day for you.” 

The words are comforting, but Lily’s voice is like sandpaper on his tortured nerves. He forces a smile and turns to look into her twisted face. 

“I know. Just thinking.”

The nightkin’s features are not built to express much besides rage and agony, but her touch is always careful, always gentle. She ruffles his hair. 

“Can’t you sleep? Grandma knows just the thing.” She releases him and shuffles away, silent as ever, despite her size. After a beat, Arthur decides to follow. 

They end up in one of the Lucky 38's long-abandoned kitchens, the light flickering on with the shy reluctance of a dancer recovering from a broken ankle. This can't be the first time Lily has been in here; the fridge is well stocked with vegetables and a number of mysterious packages, presumably containing some mostly fresh cuts of meat. Lily produces first a bottle of milk, then a saucepan. In her hands, they look like children's toys.

"Can you just give your Gramma a hand, pumpkin? These old hands aren't very good with the matches anymore."

"Sure, Lily. Just hang on a minute." 

"Good boy."

Turns out switching on an industrial gas cooker is not as easy as lighting a match, but between the two of them they figure it out in the end. 

Arthur jumps to sit atop the kitchen counter, watching Lily work with mild interest. Of all possible people to be awake at this hour…

This is not how he’d imagined his last night on earth to go.

But that is too dramatic; no matter what tomorrow may bring, Arthur is fairly confident that Courier Six is not going to die at Hoover Dam. He’s been too careful, _too damn clever_ to die.

But tomorrow…

You never know what you might lose along your travels if the road is long and winding, and tomorrow is a foreign country. 

Arthur buries his head in his hands, exhaling as quietly as he can. Again and again he runs his fingers through his hair, almost as though he is trying to tame it. 

By the cooker, Lily is humming a tune, mercifully oblivious. Arthur silently curses her for not being a real person that he might be able to have an actual conversation with. Why Lily, if he could have had drinks with Cass, or teased a few reluctant barks of laughter out of Boone? Hell, he’d half imagined himself taking a late-night stroll along the strip and encountering Vulpes, all straight-backed and disdainful in one of his terrible disguises. Arthur'd have put an arm around his shoulders and taken him to one of the casinos, heard him spit out his poison about profligates and philanderers while he taught him to play Caravan. 

_Oh, so we will all rot beneath Caesar's mouldy sandal? Fascinating, now if you place a king here, you may…_

Arthur wonders dimly if Vulpes still lives, and what it says about him that he almost considered him to be a friend. A friend he left for dead, broken and humiliated in the dirt. 

There seems to be a pattern somewhere.

Arthur chuckles humorlessly, and accepts a cup of heated brahmin milk, sweetened lightly with agave syrup.

"Thanks Lily."

An enormous hand pats his head again, mussing his hair affectionately.

"Drink up now dear, and go to bed." 

"Yes Lily." 

He wonders if this is how Lily feels all the time. Like she is watching herself from the outside. It’s been a bit like this since Goodsprings, like he returned from the grave with exceptionally poor impulse control.

Arthur sips his milk, feeling foolish and tired. He slides off the counter, cradling the mug between his hands as though to warm himself. The tap is running, making the ancient pipes groan in protest as Lily does the dishes. 

“I only wanted to see if I could get away with it, you know?”

He doesn’t think she heard him. 

Perhaps that is for the better. 

Arthur decides to leave her to it, quietly turning on his heel to pad down the corridor towards his suite. 

A lot of people will die over the following days. Tomorrow and beyond, he sees bodies upon bodies piled sky-high, until the weight of them will crush the Vegas that was. Bodies of friends and strangers, bulls and bears. 

_But,_ he thinks, finally crawling into bed, fully clothed and exhausted, _Lily’s body will not be among them._ He will not take her to Hoover Dam. 

Perhaps, in all this mess, leaving her to her kitchens and her cleaning and her waking dreams of long dead children is the one kind thing Arthur can do.

He hopes that it is kind. 


End file.
